Public housing model broken

Today, taxpayers provide the WHA with more than $48 million each year to support the housing needs of those who find it difficult to make it on their own. This extraordinary generosity is a significant investment by taxpayers who ask little more than to help their fellow citizens.

Having lived 20 years in public housing and now having served as executive director of the WHA for the past 10 years, I have come to a conclusion that might surprise some: The present system of providing public housing is not only wasteful, it is harmful.

Rather than being transitional, the current system has become the housing of choice for multiple generations of the same family. Such a system promotes reliance on public assistance and creates intergenerational poverty. With each subsequent generation, the lack of motivation to leave public housing becomes more ingrained. Today, children living in public housing are much more likely to become adult residents and raise their own children in public housing than in generations past. The bottom line is this: Today, our system of public housing does the exact opposite of what it was originally intended to do.

However well-intentioned, our system is based on the notion that residents of public housing can’t and need not do anything to help themselves and that they are destined to fail. I reject that notion. Instead of helping them get on their feet, our system provides a strong disincentive to work and become self-sufficient.

With the generous support and constant encouragement of The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, we have designed and are testing an intensive case management program that we call “A Better Life.” Having worked with 30 families for the past eight months I can report that we have learned several important lessons.

•We can change the lives of those who are willing to work with us. In just a few short months, we have doubled the number of residents attending school and more than doubled the number working. Our residents are improving their credit scores and have already saved thousands of dollars to be used to improve their lives. We have also helped our residents begin to tackle some very difficult personal problems that, by themselves, create an enormous barrier to self-sufficiency.

•The needs of our participants are great, which makes the work hard and the hours long. The challenges that these residents face are often overwhelming. A lack of an education, a mountain of debt, a need for child care and so many other problems confront any resident bold enough to try to change their lives. Compounding the problem, most residents lack a strong support system to provide the guidance and encouragement needed to navigate their way off public assistance and on to self-sufficiency. For most residents, it is so much easier to just give up.

•The present system offers a disincentive to go to work. Almost immediately upon finding a job, a resident begins to lose other public benefits. Soon he or she will see their rent increase. The combination of lost benefits and rent increase is often equal to and in some instances greater than their paycheck. It’s difficult to convince someone to go to work full-time so that they can lose family income.

•For a wide range of reasons, most residents will not seek out the help we offer; they are willing to stay right where they are. We have marketed our new program to approximately 1,500 families. Unfortunately, we have struggled to find 30 families willing to do the hard work necessary to participate in the program. Hopefully, as the success of our participants becomes better known, other residents will want to participate.

•The only way that this program will work is if the government requires families to participate. Yes, it is hard and in many cases the odds are stacked against those residents willing to do the difficult work required to become self-sufficient. But, it should not be acceptable for people to say that they won’t even try. The current system not only lets them sit on the sidelines, it encourages it.

The current system for providing public housing does not work and, in the long run, actually hurts the very people it is designed to help. Beyond simply providing housing, I recommend that we invest more, not less, and provide residents with the help and support that they need.

But for the system to work, we need to insist that those who benefit from public housing do the hard work necessary to make the investment in them bear fruit for themselves and their families.

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